ibutes of divinity by not deigning to give his worshipper a sign.
Occasionally the dog lifted a wistful supplicating paw, dropping it again
in dejection when it passed unregarded.

Presently Thalassa got up and went to a cupboard in the corner. From some
hidden receptacle he extracted a coil of ship's tobacco and a wooden pipe
shaped into a negro's head, with little beads for eyes, such as may be
bought for a few pence in shops near the London docks. He returned to his
seat, filled the pipe, lit it with a burning bough, and fell to smoking
with lingering whiffs, gazing into the fire with dark gleaming eyes as
motionless as the glinting beads in the negro's carved head.

The clock on the mantel-piece ticked steadily away in the silence. The
dog, with a brute recognition of the unsatisfactory nature of spiritual
aspiration, descended to the care of his own affairs, and scratched for
fleas which knew no other world than his hind-quarters.

"Go away, go away! You mustn't come in here!"

The shrill voice of Mrs. Thalassa broke the silence like a cracked bell,
shattering her husband's meditations, and causing the dog to spring to his
feet. Thalassa looked at her angrily. She was making mysterious motions
with her hands, as if expostulating with some phantom of her thoughts,
muttering and shaking her head rapidly. Her husband stared across in
silence for a moment.

"By God! she doesn't improve with age," he growled; then, louder: "What's
the matter with you? What are you making that noise for?"

The question went unheeded. To his astonishment she sprang to her feet
with a kind of grotesque vivacity, and, darting over to the window, began
gesticulating again with an angry persistency, as if to some one outside.

Thalassa left his seat and went to the window also. His wife had ceased
her gestures, and stood still listening and watching. Thalassa pulled back
the blind, and looked out. The moor and rocks were draped in black, and
the only sounds which reached him were the disconsolate wail of the wind
and the savage break of the sea on the rocks below. He looked at his wife.
She had started tossing her hands again at some spectral invisible thing
in the shadowy night. She was quite mad--there could be no doubt of that.
He endeavoured to lead her back to her seat by the fireside, but she broke
away from him with surprising strength, and again her voice rang out--

"Go away ... go away! You can't come in. I won't let you in. Y